BLATANT BLUFF.

Gisborne Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6318, 22 February 1922, Page 5

BLATANT BLUFF.

WORKERS TALK OF HIGHER

AY AGES

OUTSPOKEN REMARKS AT PRESS CONFERENCE,

WELLINGTON, Feb, 21. At the annual meeting of the New Zealand Newspaper Proprietors’ Association , in moving the adoption of the report and balance sheet, Mr Charles E. Earle, tho chairman, said that the future outlook for newsprint supplies must be regarded as uncertain, prices still being unsteady, while business was depressed. Referring to the industrial situation, Mr Earle remarked on the conference of representatives of printing trade employees held at Christchurch. He said that it was not likely the Arbitration Court would be influenced by the transparent propaganda of that conference, but it could not allow it to pass unchallenged. It might be thought that under the existing conditions talk of increased wages would be abandoned as too foolish for sensible men to waste time over and that trade unions would centre their attention on the more pressing problems of devising mean's to ensure continuity of employment lot their members. Apparently regardless of the changed conditions the unions, were following along the old lines, concentrating their energies on an endeavour to bolster up the present abormally high rate of wages. Their latest procedure could only he regarded as a blatant attempt to bluff the Arbitration Court into' a continuance of existing awards by demanding more than the awards now gave them. Mr Justice Frazer’s recent pronouncement conveyed the impression that this sort of humbug carried little weight. It was a reflection on the Court that such claims should be advanced in the face of the falling cost of living and the prevailing depression in the newspaper business ad trade industry generally.. Mi 1 Earle was re-elected president.— F.A.